The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
As social media and social networks have grown in recent times, social media netizens continue to seek additional techniques through which they can obtain interesting content. The social media world, for the most part, has settled on the use of hash tags, that is a “#” symbol followed by a key word, to identify appropriately tagged content. The netizens can subscribe to such hash tags, possibly via Twitter®, to receive content that has been flagged with the hash tag. However, the use of such hash tags is quite problematic.
One problem with hash tags relates to a knowledge problem. It is impossible for a netizen to know, a priori, what hash tags exist. The netizen must discover such a hash tag, or create a new hash tag and hope that others decide to use it. A better approach would allow the netizen to naturally access content of interest via a content channel without having to dig through artificial constructs such as hash tags or annotate their content with metadata.
Some effort has been applied toward allowing users to obtain interesting content, outside of social media, based on image data. For example, U.S. patent publication 2013/0273968 to Rhoads et al. titled “Methods and Systems for Content Processing”, filed Feb. 22, 2013, discusses various techniques for obtaining image-based search results. Furthermore co-owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,016,532; 7,477,780; 7,565,008; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,680,324 to Boncyk et al. describe various techniques for obtaining information based on characteristics derived from image data. Although useful with respect to object recognition, Rhoads and Boncyk lack provisions for construction of content channels.
With respect to annotating data, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,117,281; 8,244,830; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,077 to Robinson et al. describe annotating content with metadata descriptors. The metadata descriptors allow social media users to establish social networks based on common interests. As discussed above, such an approach requires modification of content in some manner to add metadata descriptors. Robinson also fails to provide insight into naturally accessing or establishing content channels.
Additional effort has been directed toward using machine learning to improve a user's experience with respect to accessing content of interest. U.S. Pat. No. 8,429,103 to Aradhye et al. titled “Native Machine Learning Service for User Adaption on a Mobile Platform”, filed Aug. 2, 2012, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,510,238 to Aradhye et al. titled “Method to Predict Session Duration on Mobile Devices Using Native Machine Learning”, filed Aug. 14, 2002, both describe feature extraction and classification with respect to image data but fail to provide a mechanism by which users can determine the existence of a content channel or create a content channel based on image data.
Further progress toward matching users with content is described in U.S. patent publication 2013/0305282 to Fleishman titled “Topic to Social Media Identify Correlation”, filed May 22, 2013. Fleishman seeks to identify correlations between user web identities and their social identities. Such correlations are then used to provide information, advertisements for example, to users. Although such correlations can be beneficial, Fleishman also lacks insight into connecting users to content channels in a natural, unobtrusive way.
Even further progress is made by U.S. patent publication 2009/0199254 to White et al. titled “Managing Media Content for a Personal Television Channel”, filed Feb. 5, 2008. White provides for categorization of media content based on image features where the media content can be delivered via a personal television channel. White's approach allows for individual consumption of content, but does not provide for a social media experience where many individuals can interact via a common digital content channel in a natural way.
Thus, there still remains a need to allow users to subscribe to desirable feeds or streams via digital content channels in a more natural way without requiring use of hash tags. As described below in the Applicant's own work, users can engage with digital content channels by treating objects themselves as a kind of channel identifier. Based on the disclosed techniques, a user can access content related to an object by configuring their smart device to recognize the object from an image.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.